Eddie Redmayne Shows Off the 'Les Mis' Barricade

"On the tomb of Lamarque shall a barricade rise!"

Last week, the official Twitter page for Les Miserables promised a behind-the-scenes sneak peak as a thank you for helping them reach 24,601 followers.  24601, of course, is best known as protagonist Jean Valjean's prison number...and somehow I'm guessing Victor Hugo never envisioned that number being used for stuff like this when he wrote the original novel in 1862.  But hey, we got a video out of it, so it's all good. 

In the clip, a bloodied Eddie Redmayne, who plays student revolutionary Marius, explains some of the carnage about to happen on the barricade between his fellow students and the French army during their rebellion in the streets of Paris.  If you're unsure how that turns out, check out Hugh Jackman (in his Jean Valjean costume) showing one of the students how to properly take bullet in the lower part of the screen.  Yikes!

Keep in mind that amidst all of this talk of gunfire and swordfights, this is a musical.  And a really good one, too.  In the stage version, the barricade is basically two giant setpieces that mechanically come together, so it's pretty cool to see the barricade in an actual street setting like it was in the original novel.

Les Miserables opens in theaters on December 14.